Hi,
What's the easiest and safest way to cast some kiddies hands? There's baby hands and a 3 year olds hands I would like to do. I have never done casting, have a Paragon Fusion 16 and would like to do it as cheap possible. I have no idea how to make the moulds.
Please help!
???
The process is not a difficult one but possibly not something to attempt as your first moldmaking and casting experience.
The impression of the hands is ideally taken using alginate, the same stuff they stick in your mouth to take teeth impressions. This is non-toxic and fast setting, which is ideal for little ones. You would then either pour plaster into this alginate impression to get a plaster version of the hand or pour wax into it to get a wax version. This part depends on how many hand you want to make. The plaster version will allow you to make a rubber mold which can then be used over and over again to make wax hands. It is the wax hand that you need to make your mold which will go into the kiln. The wax is covered in a refractory mold mix and then steamed out before adding glass and placing into the kiln for firing.
I would recommend getting a hand casting kit, these can be found in Hobby craft or even on Ebay fairly cheaply and will contain the alginate and plaster. Try that first and see what the results are like before moving into the glass part.
Thank you, good advice. Still sounds fairly complicated but I might have a reccy to Hobbycraft as you suggest in the first instance.
Lost wax casting is really an intermediate level of casting, so there are many stages to it. It's not the most complicated though. Another option might be for you to make the wax hands and get someone else to cast them into glass?